I am trying to assist a friend by using the Remote Assistance funtion in XP. I cannot seem to connect to his PC. He is using a Belkin ADSL Modem to connect to the internet and I believe he has to make some changes to the modem before I can connect (although he can connect to my PC and I use a Netgear ADSL Modem). Any ideas on what and how he needs to change on the Belkin.

Best wishes to the board,

Simpson

Why not just unplug the modem, wait 1 minute and then plug it in again.

This should reset modem back to default setting, so it should undo the changes your friend made.

If the modem has a reset button hold the reset button in for a minute.

Sorry - you have misread my post. He has not changed anything yet - I believe that changes must be made for Remote Assistance to communucate with his PC through the modem - opening ports and setting ip addresses. It is instructions for this that I am after.

Thanks anyway.

Did you open port 3389 on both TCP and UDP to the specific IP address of the PC you are wanting to control?

What happens when you use the ping command?

In services do you have Terminal services enabled?

Is this what your looking for?

http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.or...eshooting.html

TNX for the reply. I have enabled the TCP Port but not the UDP - I'll give that a try. I'll also try to understand the other suggestions in your post including the link.

What is the difference between 'Remote Assistance' and 'Remote Desktop' - I'm a little confused. I would be happy with 'Remote Assistance' which works fine for me to and from my second PC at home.

Busy 'till Monday - I'll report back then.

Cheers

I guess the easiest way to explain this remote desktop allows access to a remote Windows computer. When you are at another computer you can use Remote Desktop to connect to your work computer from home and have access to files and applications, just like you want to do with your friend.

Remote Assistance on the other hand allows you to use your Internet connection to access your friends computer to help him, you can see your friends computer screen and communicate through a chat box, you(as the helper) can remotely control his computer to fix the problem he has.

In Remote Desktop, only one user is active at a given time, while in RA (Remote Assistance), both users can activate the keyboard and mouse.

The request for a Remote Assistance session can be limited to certain duration.

Remote Assistance doesn't require you to configure a local account on the computer to which you are connecting. Remote Desktop, however, requires a local or a domain account and its password to login to the remote Windows XP computer.

Remote Assistance can also be used in "View Mode only", while Remote Desktop cannot.

Remote Desktop is only available in Windows XP Professional. Remote Assistance is available on Windows XP Home Edition, which I use.

When you and your friend are finished using Remote Access make sure that you disable it, if an attacker somehow finds a way in, or if an attack is created to exploit a vulnerability in the Remote Assistance or Remote Desktop services, your computer is just sitting and waiting to be attacked.

Remote Assistance and Remote Desktop can be very useful when you need them. But, most of the time you don't.

Many thanks for the excellent quality explanation - quite clear now.

I'll persevere with your prvious suggestions and post my success(?) next week!

Simpson